Oaxaca percolates with culture - for kids

MEXICO SPECIAL SECTION From puppets to pyramids, kids gleefully absorb its tropical hum

David Frey, Special to The Chronicle

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, January 24, 2010

Photo: John Bryson, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

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Sloped wall w. steps at ruined Zapotec city of Monte Alban, Mexico.

Sloped wall w. steps at ruined Zapotec city of Monte Alban, Mexico.

Photo: John Bryson, Time & Life Pictures/Getty Image

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Giant puppets lead a parade through the historic center of Oaxaca.

Giant puppets lead a parade through the historic center of Oaxaca.

Photo: David Frey David Frey, Special To The Chronicle

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An artisan puts the finishing touches on a fanciful woodcarving called an alebrije at Jacobo and Maria Angeles' workshop in the village of San Martin Tilcajete. The workshop specializes in using natural dies and traditional Oaxacan designs. less

An artisan puts the finishing touches on a fanciful woodcarving called an alebrije at Jacobo and Maria Angeles' workshop in the village of San Martin Tilcajete. The workshop specializes in using natural dies ... more

A market vender sells fried, rust-colored grasshoppers, a traditional snack, in the southern Mexican state Oaxaca town of Zimatlan.

A market vender sells fried, rust-colored grasshoppers, a traditional snack, in the southern Mexican state Oaxaca town of Zimatlan.

Photo: By Juan Carlos Reyes, Special To The Chronicle

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Visitors are escroted down La Ventanilla lagoon, a crocodile preserve, 45 minutes west of Baias de Huatulco (Huatulco Bays), a resort destination on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, pictured in March 2006.

Visitors are escroted down La Ventanilla lagoon, a crocodile preserve, 45 minutes west of Baias de Huatulco (Huatulco Bays), a resort destination on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, pictured in March 2006.

Photo: Adriana Zehbrauskas, NYT

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Oaxaca percolates with culture - for kids

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Never before had I been so thankful for the ancient Chinese chemist who invented gunpowder.

Near the heart of Oaxaca, the 8-year-old twins with us were heading into a meltdown and the prospect of a cranky whinefest (now in stereo) seemed inevitable. Only the fireworks saved us.

From some hidden corner of this colonial city, a fusillade of rockets exploded into the afternoon sky.

"Come on! Let's go!" insisted Twin No. 2.

The fireworks led us to a parade filling the street for blocks. Horns blared. Drums pounded. Giant papier-mache puppets swirled. We joined the throng, dancing past brightly colored facades and crumbling walls.

It turns out that this place of endless diversions for adults also provides endless distractions for children, especially those with a love of pyramids, dolphins, chocolate, clay and monsters. Bonus points: They just might learn something about the culture without ever seeing a classroom.

Tucked into southern Mexico between the mountains of Chiapas and the Pacific, the state of Oaxaca is one of Mexico's poorest, but with 16 indigenous groups, it's rich in culture and tradition.

The Oaxacan menu ranges from a palette of seven succulent moles (those rich Mexican sauces famous for often containing chocolate, plus a host of spices) to artisanal cheese to worms. (Ground up in a chile powder, those tequila bottle floaters are a gourmet treat.) Oaxaca produces mezcal, tequila's smoky cousin, and its mountains yield rich coffee and chocolate.

If you're a grown-up visiting Oaxaca, there's a good chance you'll want to shop. If you're a kid, odds are, you won't. Even the alebrijes, which seemed pretty cool to me, are ho-hum to the Xbox generation.

Pottery bard

Oaxaca's treasures abound in its central market, but to really experience Oaxaca, you need to get out of the city and into the villages.

Our bed and breakfast, the kid-friendly Casa de las Bugambilias, recommended Roberto. Like many of the city's taxistas, he was an expert at guiding tourists, and he whisked us past roadside vendors selling tropical fruit to the village of San Bartolo Jiutepec. There we found Don Valente Nieto Real, a master of Oaxacan pottery style barro negro.

His mother, Doña Rosa, discovered the technique some 57 years ago and put this village on the tourist track. Rubbing traditional Oaxacan pottery with quartz, she produced pottery with a dazzling shine. Over the years, she perfected a technique found nowhere else.

Others in town copied her style. Don Valente inherited it. "They don't teach you this at school," he said, spinning a perfectly formed pitcher by hand.

The twins discovered a kid's table set up with moist clay ready for action and set out to do it themselves. While we shopped, they created.

World of fantasy

It was even better when we reached San Martin Tilcajete, one of several villages famous for alebrijes. Past sugarcane fields, we turned into the little cobblestone town where a sign greeted us in Spanish: "Welcome to the world of fantasy."

The village is filled with workshops where craftspeople create a menagerie of alebrijes: dragons, dinosaurs, frogs, hummingbirds, fire-breathing, spike-covered creatures.

Manuel Jiménez gets credit for launching this fanciful art form in the 1960s. His success inspired others in surrounding villages to take up wood carving. Now, more than 200 workshops spread throughout the villages of San Martin Tilcajete, San Antonio Arrazola, La Union Tejalapa and San Pedro Cajonos.

The boys showed little interest in these creatures before, but at Jacobo and Maria Angeles' family workshop, they sat in rapt attention as craftspeople demonstrated their work, from humble beginnings as a piece of copal wood to a dazzling monster. The Angeles family specializes in using natural dyes to paint traditional Zapotec designs. Using the boys' hands as a palette, they showed how pomegranates and lime juice create dazzling colors.

The twins painted their own alebrijes, and we left with a pair of painted cats, created by a couple of talented twins.

When we visited a weaver's workshop, the boys were invited to weave. When we visited an artisanal mezcal distillery, they fed the millstone-turning horse, Paloma.

By the end of the day, the four of us collapsed in our rooms. What could have been a disastrous day of craft shopping with a couple bored kids turned into a day where the boys had more fun than the grown-ups.

Pyramids, chocolate

It took some tugging to get them the next day to Monte Alban, the ancient pyramids of the once-mighty Zapotec empire. Boys who love exploring ruins in computer games are less enthused about the real thing. Once there, though, the underground tunnels delight.

Twin No. 1 raced me to the top of the tallest pyramid, where a view of this former city spread out before us. Inspired by his brother's walkie-talkie transmissions, Twin No. 2 raced his mom up to join us.

They weren't thrilled either - at first - when we showed them the delights of market day in a Mexican village. Along the street, we stopped at the vendors, sampling honey from the honeycomb, and yes, even some pulverized worms. Then we ducked into the chocolate shop, where women from the surrounding hills poured in, each with her own hot chocolate recipe. The women headed to a row of grinders along the wall and filled them with their unique mixes of cocoa beans, sugar, maybe cinnamon or almonds.

They don't mind too much when the boys dip in their fingers to give it a try.

Banana boats

The Pacific Coast is tantalizingly close to the city, and agonizingly far away. By bus, it's an unendurable six hours-plus along winding mountain roads.

By plane, it's a different story. We hopped into a 13-seater for a 30-minute flight over cloud-covered peaks to the sandy coast.

Our destination was low-key Puerto Escondido, which has resisted the resortification of many Mexican beach towns. Its small-town vibe is layered with European backpackers looking for big waves.

But great surfing means rough swimming. Although our hotel fronts legendary Playa Zicatela, we opted for the gentler surf of family-friendly Playa Manzanillo down the road. We picked a palapa to call home for the day, alternating between sunbathing, surf playing, gorging on fresh seafood and quaffing lemonades (the minors) and margaritas (the grown-ups).

The four of us mounted an inflatable yellow tube tugged by a motorboat. Tropical air and sea spray blew across our faces. Twin No. 1 took the middle with me and screamed with delight. Twin No. 2 sat in front, held by Mom, and screamed with terror.

It was half a success.

Turtles and dolphins

One of a number of fishermen-turned-tour-operators, a young man named Ceviches, lured us onto his lancha with promises to show us dolphins or our money back.

Ceviches had tried the immigrant life in the United States, but he missed his hometown's laid-back lifestyle. Here, he spends his afternoons surfing, his mornings escorting tourists, dragging a pair of fishing lines behind.

We set out in early morning, when dolphin watching is best. Ceviches found the turtles quickly. Big, green sea turtles paddle lackadaisically alongside the boat. The dolphins?

Ceviches pointed to an all-but-indecipherable ripple on the horizon.

"I promise you turtles, we see turtles," he said. "I promise you dolphins, we see dolphins?"

Is that it? No way. Soon, we were surrounded by dozens, no, make that hundreds of dolphins, leaping, spinning, playing in the wake of the boat.

"Wow!" was all we could say. Over and over.

Reef revelations

This Pacific strip is a sea turtle nesting ground. For years, life was tough for the turtles. Locals made their living scooping up their eggs and selling them. The turtles nearly vanished.

Since then, townspeople discovered that turtles can be their livelihood without killing them. We rented a car and drove to the village of Mazunte, where the National Turtle Center showcases turtles from around the world in tanks and pens.

Down the road, a woman's cooperative has turned from egg gathering to making beauty products from local ingredients. With the help of the Body Shop Foundation, they've created the Mazunte natural cosmetics company. Visitors stop to take a tour of the factory and sample their shampoos and skin creams, all made from local products like coconut and avocado oils.

At the nearby resort town of Huatulco, we found the mellow waters that eluded us in Puerto Escondido. At Twin No. 1's insistence, we rented snorkel gear and paddled off from shore. Twin No. 2 set out reluctantly, but soon he was singing into his snorkel, confidently exploring the reef's edges.

Maybe it's because a kid with a snorkel in his mouth can't complain, but suspended in the water, everything became perfect. The four of us held hands and floated over a maze of coral: warm sun above, warm water below, brightly colored fish swimming by.

From behind their masks, the boys gazed into a real-life aquarium, dazzled by the splendor in a way a video game will never evoke.

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